Sorry for the delay in this, I hit not one but two breaks in logic that I had no idea how to fix at first. I hope my solution works for all of you. Please let me know if you like it, don't like it, or if there are still places that get confusing. I think I've fixed it now, but I ran the risk of it seeming cut together. I answered some of the questions you all had, anyway. ~A
*
Kept waiting for more than twenty minutes by his father's bodyguards, David's patience frayed by the second until he finally picked up the unconscious Anna once more and bluntly ordered them away. Neither guard seemed ready to compete with the fury etched on his face, and stood aside. With a vicious kick, David forced the large double doors open, the echoing slam shocking the seven men seated around one end of the oval parlor table. Before David could speak, a man he did not recognize leapt to his feet. "How dare you enter these rooms uninvited! Who the hell do you think you are?"
David rested Anna's weight on the edge of the large table so he could pull back the hood of her sweatshirt, which revealed her bloody silver necklace, the sight of which ended the man's tirade abruptly. David glared at all the men around the table equally. "Since I doubt even your wives would chance this for you, perhaps my annoyance at being kept waiting has good reason." He spoke levelly, not even raising his voice, but that, coupled with his bloody burden, made more of a shockwave amongst the gathered men, not less. "I am through waiting." His eyes paused on each man, resting finally on the eldest. "The university campus you sent me to was the same as all the rest until the Depraved One visited and nearly bled my mortal assistant, here, dry. Completely passing me by, I might point out. But twenty-two hours later she is immune to my touch, and bears neither physical mark nor mental aberration." The metered rhythm of his words plodded onward in spite of the visible discomfort and shock of the seven men before him. "I am hoping you may have ideas where I do not, though from the look of your faces I'm wasting valuable time asking."
"You drugged her?" was the reply of one of the older men at last; the name Joshua was summoned from the depths of David's memory, but he did not really know the man. "You dared chance silver when this could be--"
"No," David interrupted. "I tried to take the necklace from her, hours ago. But I can't hold onto the clasp long enough to get it undone. If you think you could do better, please do." None of the men moved, so David continued. "She seems to have limited access to his mind when he looks into hers... this was her idea, without any mention by me, an attempt to keep him out of her head. It seems to have worked, but even this wears off sooner each time. She's stronger than I can hope to understand."
"Is it possible she's still mortal?" one of the younger men asked.
"With him in her head?" David replied, not needing to finish the thought.
"He's following you." The eldest man's words were not a question, so David did not waste time answering it as such, he just returned his attention to the center of the group. "Then we don't have much time."
David shook his head, agreeing with the conclusion. "He should still be at least eight hours behind us, last I checked." At their blank looks he added, "Anna kept tabs on him for awhile, before she started losing blood." He gingerly used the collar of her shirt to guard his fingers from the chain, pulling it away from her neck to survey the damage.
She stirred. "No..."
"Anna, leave it!" he cried, even as her fingers were heading for the chain once more.
"Can't. He... knows..."
He pulled her fingers away and gripped it as gently as he could while not letting her go. "We're safe, let him come. You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up."
She froze, trembling, and the noise that left her throat started as a whimper before getting strangled off. Her body went rigid in his arms and her eyes shot open, solid inky black pools beneath the reflective gleam. Unless he was very mistaken, her lips even started to curl back in a silent hiss, but her forehead furrowed and she forced her eyes shut, the expression of loathing lost. "Help me," she whispered, hands rising to clutch her forehead. "Help me... please..."
A pair of wrinkled, elderly hands reached in to clasp her head atop her own, and everything went black.
*
David woke up on the floor of his father's sitting room when smelling salts were waved under his nose by the only remaining member of the previous gathering.
"Anna?" He tried to sit up, but the world spun. If he was on the floor, he must have dropped her...
"Easy, cousin," the other told him, assisting him into a seated position after setting the vile bottle of salts on the edge of the table. "She's in bed, as is Grandfather. Both are fine, if unconscious and likely to remain so for some time."
The door opened, readmitting three of the occupants David recalled from before he passed out. "How long have I been out?"
"Not long," replied a man with a distinctly German accent, the same man that had reacted so strongly to his entrance earlier. "We tended to your friend and to Grandfather first."
David tried not to react to the underlying message that what had just occurred was his fault, but the man kneeling next to him had no such qualms. "Shove it, Freddie," he snapped. "Don't you know who you're talking to?"
David could feel his cheeks flush at the calculating glare thrown his way by the German. "No. Who am I talking to?"
"My little brother," announced a voice across the room, entering from the elder's inner rooms. All present save David straightened up somewhat. "Though you may find it wise to assume anyone you meet here is your better, Friedrich. You are no longer in Bremen." The man so named sketched a shaky bow in the direction of David's brother, face a bit paler than before.
David enlisted the aid of his kneeling companion to achieve his feet, quickly taking the nearest chair before the world's spinning sent him out of control. He nodded at his stocky older brother, Edmund. "What brings you here, Ed? I thought you were living in London these days."
"I am, but when the virus broke out on multiple continents simultaneously, we needed a strategy." Ed joined him at the table, inviting the others to find seats with a glance. "You gave us all quite a scare with information like that. Was there anything you missed? I followed that your girl has no mark and no taint, but has the mental link. Is she otherwise like the rest of them?"
David considered a moment before shrugging. "If she hadn't healed fully and gained the link, I would have assumed she were still mortal. Not to mention she can handle my touch, or, er... my kiss." The men at the table hid smiles with varying degrees of success. "The mental link wasn't obvious until we were having a... private moment. Something alerted him, I'd guess. I don't know if it was there before that or not."
The man who had helped him off the floor was the first to break the silence. "You said she chanced silver like that for you," he said slowly, tasting each word as he spoke it. "Did you explain its full effects? Not to invade her privacy, or yours, but I'm wondering if she's trying to kill herself."
